Some of you may know that I’m a Kindle fanatic, and that I’m proud of it. Back in 2007 we purchased a Kindle at Lulu and I was intrigued by its potential as a book-replacement device. The new Kindle 2 furthers Amazon’s effort to provide an efficient and convenient means by which readers can purchase and enjoy books. Personally, I’ve found that when I’m reading on the Kindle I soon forget that I’m reading an ebook–I’m simply enjoying a book.

After the first Kindle came out Amazon tried to make it easy for independent authors to publish their ebook into the Kindle Store.  They put links all over Amazon, and even made this publishing process free. That soon got attention, and now over 200,000 books are available for the Kindle–not to mention newspapers, magazines and blogs. Add in other reading devices like the Sony Reader and the iPhone and it’s clear that ebooks are starting to hit their stride.

What was missing for the self-published author, however, was a connection between publishing your book into the hottest ebook reading device (the Kindle) and making a printed book available as well.  In fact, an author publishing their printed book through Createspace–Amazon’s self-publishing arm–only had the option of publishing a separate ebook version that wasn’t even compatible with the Kindle. Where’s the logic in that?

Well, that situation looks like it’s starting to change. I noticed earlier this week that Createspace had improved their site somewhat, and even more importantly they’ve highlighted the fact that you can publish your book onto the Kindle. No more keeping these kids apart, because although they may not be “twins” they are part of the same publishing family, and they certainly complement an author’s self-publishing options.

They now showcase Kindle ebook publishing

That’s the good news. The not-so-good news is that the two publishing paths aren’t yet integrated–that is, you can’t publish once and have it work for both the print and Kindle channels. As a result, you’ll be uploading your manuscript twice and repeating several process steps–author name, title, description, personal info, etc–as you go through separate publishing wizards. As a matter of fact, you’ll end up publishing through two different sites–not an efficient process at all.

But that being said, I do believe that this is the start of a brighter future for Createspace authors. The Kindle is an excellent reading device, and ebooks are the future of books. And now, Createspace authors have a real ebook option that was missing before.

So give it a shot–you just can’t beat free.

Till next time–keep publishing!

Henry Hutton

PublishandSell.com